Thursday, August 2, 2012

Round-Up: August 2

As I announced yesterday, the Brevissima book is done! If you have not downloaded a free PDF copy of Brevissima: 1001 Tiny Latin Poems, it's ready and waiting, and you can also get a free PDF copy of Mille Fabulae et Una: 1001 Aesop's Fables in Latin (the book from summer before last). If you prefer the heft of a book in your hand, you can get the printed books from Lulu.com.

I've reorganized the layout of the Round-Up a bit. Each round-up will have a distich poem in it, and I'm gradually going to be working through all the distich blog posts (some of them are a year or two old), fixing them up so that they match the book presentation. All the distich poems have blog posts and by the end of the year I should be able to get them revised, with navigation leading from poem to poem in the same sequence as the book. :-)

HODIE: ante diem quartum Nonas Augustas.

MYTHS and LEGENDS: The art image for today's legend shows Psyche and Cupid; you can also see the legends for the current week listed together here.


TODAY'S MOTTOES and PROVERBS:

TINY MOTTOES: Today's tiny motto is: Deo duce (English: With God as my guide).

3-WORD PROVERBS: Today's 3-word verb-less proverb is Amici fures temporis (English: Friends are thieves of time)

AUDIO PROVERBS: Today's audio Latin proverb is Manus digiti coaequales non sunt, omnes tamen usui (English: The fingers of the hand are not equal, but all are useful). To read a brief essay about this proverb and to listen to the audio, visit the Latin Via Proverbs blog.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS: Today's proverb from Publilius Syrus is: Crudelis lacrimis pascitur, non frangitur (English: The cruel man feeds on tears; he is not swayed by them).

ERASMUS' ANIMALS: Today's animal proverb from Erasmus is Plaustrum bovem trahit (English: The cart is pulling the ox - as in the English phrase, "putting the cart before the horse"; from Adagia 1.7.28).

BREVISSIMA: The distich for today is Scire Futura, an elegiac couplet: Cursus fatorum nescit mens ulla virorum; / Solius est proprium scire futura Dei.

TODAY'S FABLES:

FABULAE FACILES WIDGET: The fable from the Fabulae Faciles widget is Talpa et Olitor, the story of the gardener who is not fooled by the mole (this fable has a vocabulary list).

AESOP IN ENGLISH VERSE: Today's fable from the English verse widget is Fortune and the Boy, a story about how Fortune does not like being blamed for our own foolishness.

MILLE FABULAE WIDGET: The fable from the Mille Fabulae et Una widget is Anguis et Milvus, a story of unexpected consequences - in which the kite gets more than he bargained for.

Corvus et Serpens